WORK to allow disabled people full access to facilities at Darlington's Crown Street Library could begin next month.

With planning permission for external and internal work already granted, consent for the alterations to the listed building are expected to be passed to the Secretary of State for approval by Darlington Borough Council next week.

The move is the final bureaucratic stage in a scheme which has been many years in development, and which was finally taken up by disabled people, who set up a task group in 2000 to bring about the changes.

Council staff are already hard at work clearing an area of the basement level where a lift will be installed on the corner of Crown Street and Priestgate, giving an access option to people who cannot use the two existing sets of steps.

It is hoped approval for the work will be confirmed by the Government Office for the North-East by mid-February, so the building alterations can begin.

The £145,000 scheme will include lower counters, wheelchair-compatible furniture and lavatories, wider aisles, automatic doors and the removal of some doors.

People with hearing and sight disabilities will benefit from an upgraded fire alarm system using visual warnings and high visibility signs.

Peter White, libraries manager for the council, said: "Getting people into the building is just the beginning. Once they are in there, we will provide a layout that is friendly to people in wheelchairs and those with other disabilities."

The northern part of the building was opened as the Edward Pease Free Library in 1885, following a dying gift from the Darlington Quaker, and was tripled in size by the borough architect in 1933.

A report by council planning officer Mike Hein-Hartmann on the access problems said: "Both entrances, partly as a result of the original imposing nature of the visual design and partly because of the presence of a semi-basement level, feature stairway entrance approaches.

"Exacerbated by the steady landfall southwards along Crown Street and the off-street location of the stair and entrance to the library, this stairway is particularly steep."

Mr White said: "The architects have done a very good job and it is in sympathy with the rest of the building, which it needs to be to get the necessary planning permission."

Gordon Pybus, chairman of the task force set up by Darlington Association on Disability, said: "It shows, with some imagination, what you can do with listed buildings."